Let it be War
by Ridicully L
Summary: The Phantom has lost everything- now the only thing left that gives him the will to live is… his sworn enemy! Ch. 3 up!
1. Carlotta's aria

﻿ 

The characters of this story are based on Andrew Lloyd Webber' s Phantom of the Opera show and the new movie. The setting is one week after Christine and Raoul has escaped to... wherever...and the mob has thoroughly trashed the Phantom's lair...

01 Carlotta' s aria

"Signora!" Implored Madam Giry. "You must not enter that dressing room! It was, after all, Miss Daae's--- who knows what the phantom might do if he sees you---"

The Signora, La Carlotta, simply swiveled her plushy chair until she had achieved the perfect angle for sound wave amplification. At the sight of her shaking chin--- which would have been clear warning to nearby villagers should it have a volcanic counterpart--- Monsieurs Andre and Firmin promptly fled the site. The phantom they feared of course--- but while no one was sure where he was, or whether he was still alive at all, Carlotta was, on the other hand, here, which was good enough reason for them to assign the room to Carlotta.

"The Phantom the phantom the phantom!" The prima donna exploded at the poor woman. "All you talk about is that phantom! If you're so afraid of him, then fine, quit your job! I, on the other hand, will quit mine if I don't get this dressing room! Si! If the phantom sees me here, then he sees me here! All he should care about is_ I_ don't see him here... here, in _my _room, si! Now go go go! Leave me alone!"

Whether Mme. Giry's eardrums were still intact after the outburst was a mystery--- she just stood there with a stunned expression, as if her head had collided repeatedly with a gong. Thanks to a few kind earplugged souls standing outside, she was towed out of the way before the soprano slammed the door at where she stood a moment ago.

Satisfied that her point had been made, Carlotta swiveled her chair to face the mirror once more. As she swept off Christine's bouquets and trinkets from the table with an impatient flourish, her ears picked up muffled whisperings outside the door. Sighing in exasperation, she swiveled her chair again, and, clearing her throat ostensibly, began singing:

_Prima donna, first lady of the stage!_

_Your devotees are on their knees to implore you!_

_Can you bow out when they're shouting your name!_

_Think of how they all adorrrre you!_

_Prima donna enchant us once again!_

_Think of your muse…_

She paused. _What?_ She had only barely hit _forte_… clearly, the song had already done its work of evacuating eavesdroppers within a mile. As the echoes died, she felt alone...

Alone, and _thinking of her muse..._

Piangi! She wanted to cry out again; a sob rising in her throat as she thought of the recently deceased tenor. Dear, beloved Piangi... the only soul who loved her despite her constant tantrums and threats to leave the opera house. She swallowed her tears with determined grimness. Well, tantrums and threats won't bring him back anymore. They did, however, get her this room--- the room that would be the key to granting her her heart' s desire--- revenge!

Checking the dagger tucked carefully in her cleavage, she flung open the no-longer-secret entrance at the mirror dramatically, grabbed a nearby candle stand, and strutted down into the darkness below purposefully.

* * *

The winding dungeon steps were strewn with reminders of the mob that passed the same way a week ago, thirsting for the phantom's blood; but there was no sign of a human soul around anymore. Carlotta had long since given up watching for the telltale mask or the Punjab lasso that might fall about her neck from nowhere. A sense of disappointment began growing in her as she towed herself across the underground lake strenuously. _Is he still here? He'd better be... _She fumed. _Otherwise this is just going to be another weight-loss program... _Stopping to catch her breath, she decided to sing a little aria to cheer herself on: 

_(Sing to the tune of "Think of Me", with crescendo)_

_Think of me,_

_Think of me Piangi,_

_As though you have not died._

_Remember me,_

_Be with me always-_

_Watch me by my side_

_For you'll see _

_that vengeance's sure and swift_

_to the wrongdoer who walks free-_

_If I catch him at his lair, then,_

_he'd be sorry, si…  
_

_(Refrain)_

_I care not whether you are ghost or man, it's blood for blood and life for life- _

_If you had the guts to kill, then_

_Come out here and fight!  
_

_You shall be revenged and so shall I,_

_For being made a laughing stock, oh, mio…_

_Think of me,_

_Think of me phantom, silent and concealed._

_Your doom is near, say all your prayers it's time to pay your due._

_There was a time, we let you have your way,_

_Now it's alla morte me and you- _

_I shall hunt you down and finish what those men couldn't do…  
_

_(Refrain)_

_I care not whether you are ghost or man, it's blood for blood and life for life- _

_If you had the guts to kill, then_

_Come out here ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah… and fight!  
_

The powerful sound waves seemed to have broken a number of things other than the silence: The ancient pillars trembled; plaster rained, machinery failed, and a mini-tsunami clashed against the other shore. As she hit the "_and" _with a moan of satisfaction, a few bats fell down from the rafters into the lake, headfirst. One of them, to her surprise, was man-shaped and dressed in an opera cloak...

* * *

_It's over now, the music of the night…_

Those were the last words he sang.

What was he now? One part of him wondered, while the other part of him wondered if the first part that was wondering was going unhinged. He had been the Phantom of the Opera, the Opera Ghost; Opera characters were his family, the opera house his home; his soul was opera and heck, his whole life was like one as well. It was, therefore, crucial for it to end like one, with a final vanishing trick, as befitted a phantom's demise. The plot demanded the death of the phantom.

What he couldn't understand now was why he had vanished only to come back to the same place--- although he supposed that would be stretching the term "same" to some extent, accounting for the fact that his woman had fled with her lover, his home had been wrecked and the music he wrote had been reduced to ashes by the mob. There was, technically, no reason for him to exist. _Couldn't God at least have the artistic mercy to let me die of a broken heart?_ He thought bitterly.

For the past week, he had wandered through the secret passageways of the opera house listlessly, collapsing into dreamless slumber when exhausted, hoping for Death to take him as he slept--- but alas, it had not happened so far. As he sat on the rafters over the subterranean lake, he pondered throwing himself into the dark waters and ending it all... after all, what was he waiting for, the curtain call?

"Christine... my angel... " He whispered the words that, he deemed, would be his last. Through a haze of tears he perceived a light move towards him slowly. _Could it be her?_ His heart leapt with startling suddenness. _Or... could it be a hallucination?_ His keen eyes penetrated the darkness with a clarity that made his heart sank again--- hallucinated or real, Christine would never dress like a red balloon..._ever_. He briefly thought it was the devil coming for his soul, but doubted whether Hell could stoop as low as this in terms of style, too. It could only be...

"Carlotta!" He hissed. If there was a good time to commit suicide, it was certainly not now, and, preferably, not anywhere on a timeline that coincided with Carlotta's existence. But he supposed he'd just have to make the best of what he's got... and wait for that plague to leave the area...

The most horrific noise suddenly assaulted his fine-tuned ears. It began with _Pianissimo_, and, to his dismay, gradually gathered strength... _Death, where is thy sting? _He groaned. _When is this going to end? There' s people waiting to die in peace here! _

"If there's one last thing I have to do," He snarled to himself, drawing his deadly lasso from his pocket. "One last service to the realm of opera---"

As he stood up menacingly, a wave of dizziness suddenly washed over his brain. _When was the last time I had a meal? I can't remember... _

At the same time, the aria escalated to its dynamic zenith.

"… ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah… and fight!" Thundered Carlotta.

The sonic waves, amplified thanks to the fine resonation design of the opera cellars, slammed into him at full force a millisecond later--- and all he could remember was a strange buzz in his head, and his knees buckling slowly beneath him…

To be continued… 


	2. Let it be War

Disclaimer: The characters of this story are based on Andrew Lloyd Webber' s Phantom of the Opera show and the new movie. The setting is one week after Christine and Raoul has escaped to... wherever...and the mob has thoroughly trashed the Phantom's lair... 

This fic is dedicated to my friend Beriath!

02 Let it be War

The impact upon hitting the frigid water slammed his mind out of its stupor. _What just happened? I must have fallen... _as numbness spread through his body,the thought of simply letting gravity take him to his final resting place enticed him with ever-greater appeal, but then he suddenly remembered...

"Carlotta!..." His curse was cut off as he inadvertently swallowed two mouthfuls of lake water. _Did she see me? _

_No matter how low I have fallen, I will not let that ogress gloat over my demise! _The thought, red-hot like lightening, fired up his brain. Although he had lost everything, pride died hard. As numbed by cold as he was, the imagined scene of Carlotta singing "Priiiima Donna you triumph once again..." as a parting dirge over his watery grave sent a colder chill up his spine. _No artist should ever die such a humiliating death!_ He swore silently.Before he knew it, his limbs were towing him up towards air once again, filled with a new strength and resolve that could only be induced by years of loathing and eardrum-abuse.

As he broke the surface and restocked his lungs with hated oxygen once more, his eyes quickly sought out the diva's lit boat, and another cold chill passed through him--- it was empty! His fears were further confirmed when he heard a steady pounding sound, much like a humpback doing flops, crashing towards him---

Thanks to his superb night vision, a timely swerve to the right brought his face out of the range of a silver arc of light. "_Perire!_" A high-pitched voice screamed. _She's directly in front of me! _He realized. In panic, his leg snapped up in a vicious sweep to kick her in the stomach while _her_ hand came down again, and searing pain squeezed every nerve in his limb as the dagger sank into his thigh...

Carlotta unplugged the bloody dagger with a snort of satisfaction. She could as well have stayed in the boat and laugh as her adversary drown, but some impulse caused her to jump overboard--- don't ask her why... it was probably the half-Spanish blood overheating... anyway, as she raised her hand to strike again, it was seized by a cold, vice-like grip... whose crushing hold caused her wrist bones to squeak in complaint and drop the dagger. Fast as lightening, some long, slimy object was loped around her neck. _Disgraziata! _She lamented. _I forgot about the Punjab lasso! _Immediately taking a deep breath, she stocked her ample chest to its last cubic millimeter. Ignoring the tightening noose, she clutched her assailant's... whatever... with one hand and started hammering on... some other part of him...

Erik tried to tighten the noose with his usual cold, merciless hold...but some problems were rearing their ugly heads--- the major one being he could not rear his, as one of Carlotta's hands was squeezing onto the back of his neck with animal passion, while the other one was banging upon his head like a sack of stones--- or, to be precise, diamonds. Compared to her ring-encrusted fist, Erik's head was woefully low on the Moh's hardness scale... anyway, what's importantly was, it was so low that it was beneath the water surface. This was simply a contest of who would run out of air last. Technically, he could drag the diva down with him to the bottom of the lake, where both of them would surely perish--- but, of course, the mere thought of that made him wince. _Me, dying entwined in the arms of this tub of lard? _He scoffed. _No way! _

The other option was to strangle her at the surface. Unfortunately, while the spirit was willing, the body was weak from the lack of food and blood loss--- in fact, he doubted whether he could even continue with this exertion for another minute. Judging from the length of time Carlotta could yowl on stage, the odds were not on his side--- with sinking hope, he half-suspected that he might need half an hour before the prima donna expired...

The same thoughts were racing through Carlotta's mind. She allowed the jealously-guarded oxygen to escape slowly, only enough to clear the stars whirling before her eyes, but the rope sunk into her throat deeper every second... until she thought her head would surely explode like a pinched bubble. She pondered dragging her foe down to the lake with her, too, but to her dismay, she was a natural floater...

There wasn't really much she could do to improve her situation... until the pressure on her neck vanished miraculously. _O padre mio!_ She thanked her stars as air gushed into her flaming lungs. _O, fortunate_! Revenge was momentarily forgotten--- all she cared about at that moment was to get as far away from this homicidal maniac as possible. Instinctively, she released her grip on the phantom, doughed-out a powerful turning kick for good measure, and started plowing through the water towards her boat like a galleon on full steam.

As for the phantom, he was also swimming away at the opposite direction as if a boatload of opera critics were hot on his trail.

With shaking fingers, the prima donna heaved herself onto the boat--- choking, as her breaths were still cut short by the noose that constricted her airway just short of strangulation; she loosened the coil frantically and tossed it to the deck, then flopped down face-up in the rocking boat, gulping deep, blessed lungfuls greedily... Until she remembered something important.

"Damn! Where's that phantom? I'm not calling a truce!" She leapt up. Holding the lantern, she scanned the lake surface quickly--- but the ghost was nowhere in sight. Carlotta groaned. Did this mean she had to come down _again_? The thought of him slipping through her fingers enraged her. However, her throat was calling this a day, and her aching muscles were threatening to go on strike. "At least I've got his lasso," her lazy side tempted. "Heaven knows! Maybe he hasn't got another one! Hohohohoho!"

Regardless of the laughter, she looked down at the accursed rope with a shudder. For a moment, she thought she saw a metallic glint among its coils...

She brought the lamp closer curiously, and found that a silver chain had gotten twisted around the rope---

--- and on its end, a diamond ring glittered in the lamplight like the tear of an angel.

To be continued… 


	3. Your Chains are still Mine

Disclaimer: The characters of this story are based on Andrew Lloyd Webber' s Phantom of the Opera show and the new movie. The setting is one week after Christine and Raoul has escaped to... wherever...and the mob has thoroughly trashed the Phantom's lair...

Your Chains are still Mine

Carlotta looked at the ring. Then she inspected her ten fingers--- none of her own rings were missing (although one of her diamonds seemed to have gotten dented from rebounding off the Ghost's skull). The logical deduction was, therefore, that the ring belonged to the Phantom.

The broken silver chain was another giveaway: Carlotta herself never wore anything on a chain if it fitted on her fingers nor anything on her fingers if it fitted on her ears. When it came to good taste, Carlotta believed it was other people's duty to tell her she had it.

She scanned the lake again, and made up her mind--- if the Phantom was taking a breather, it's only fair that she should have one, as well.

"Monsieur Ghost?" She said, with the tone of a general who has decided to make a strategic advance to the rear, but with dignity of course. "Just to let you know, I'm not going to wait here catching my death while you hide and sulk, _non_! If you want to continue where we left off, you shall have to come find me after my bath..." She did some rapid mental organization. "Or better still, does tomorrow noon work for you?"

Her offer was met with an apathetic silence. Carlotta fumed inwardly--- It's the first time she made way in her schedule for someone else. She had expected a more enthusiastic response.

"I take that as a yes," She muttered, half to herself. "And it had better be--- or I'm going to pawn your little trinket tomorrow night, you hear?"

* * *

Erik dragged himself onto the island that had been his home. He was secretly grateful for the darkness, as he did not have to witness the carnage strewed before him--- for example, the shattered remains of his organ, the only faithful friend he had that did everything he wanted it to do… 

Pity could wait, however, as currently he felt somewhat worse off than it himself. "Once I get these damned stars cleared out of my head..." He muttered darkly. "... She will have Hell to pay... "

He clutched his head with a groan: it felt as if someone had crashed a busload of butterflies inside it. Bandaging his leg as best as he could, he cursed himself for his momentary weakness: after all, he had done more strenuous things in worse shape than this. Christine must have made him soft. Either that, or he suspected it was that horrible singing...

The thought of Christine brought another wave of dizziness through his brain. _Why blame her for this?_ He thought. _She has made the right choice. There is nothing she want from me, least of all the ring... _

He started, suddenlyaware ofthe absence of the silver chain's pressure on his neck.

Panic whipped up another galaxy's worth of stars before his eyes--- had it gotten lost in the lake? As much as he loathed the ring, it also held the memory of the greatest and only triumph in his life: she had put it on--- if only for a little while, hadn't she? For a brief moment, the elation had carried him so high that he almost felt like an angel soaring among the clouds...

... even though the next second had cast him down into the deepest pit of Hell.

Nevertheless, the ring was a taste of paradise itself to him. If it had ended up on the bottom of the lake, then that was where Erik would be going, too.

He stood up shakily, dimly aware of Carlotta making a din about meeting him some time or other. Then something caught his ear:

"... I'm going to pawn your little trinket tomorrow night, you hear?"

He was assaulted by another dizzy spell. _Can it be... _The very thought shook him to the core. _That SHE has gotten my ring... Christine's ring? _His mind inadvertently flashed back to the time when this evil woman had stolen Christine's role in _Il Muto_--- and, as if that wasn't enough, this time she had stolen her ring! His mind, as he would later admit, wasn't at its most stable self (as anyone's mind wouldn't be if s/he had just been knifed, drowned and clubbed to near-death), and somehow he reached the following conclusion by joining the dots:

Carlotta was the one who got into the way of his plans concerning Christine.

This time, she had stolen Christine's ring, which had the same meaning to him as Christine herself.

Conclusion: It must have been Carlotta's doing that he couldn't have Christine with him. Therefore, if he could defeat Carlotta, Christine would by default return to him.

It wasn't the soundest reasoning in the world, but the more he thought about it, the more his blood boiled. "Carlotta..." His voice started as a growl and strengthened into an almost feral cry. "Come back here this instant!"

However,the sopranowas already beyond earshot range. Even if she had heard it, she would have automatically ignored it anyway after generations of opera managers had yelled the same thing after her. Some of them might point out helpfully that grovelling worked better. But the Phantom was too heated to think about that right now. He immediately plunged back into the lake and pulled himself through it with powerful, determined strokes…

The only person in Carlotta's dressing room was Mme. Giry, who was on her knees picking up dressmaking pins from the floor when a boot, dripping wet, strode into her visual horizon. Her gaze traveled up--- and her eyes bulged out in shock. If her mouth wasn't full of pins, she looked as if she would have screamed...Nevertheless, her face turned a crimson shade with the effort of not swallowing the pins. The Phantom suddenly remembered that he hadn't bothered to wear a mask. He was basically still in what he was wearing when Christine left him.

"Sorry," he turned his face aside. "You can look now."

"Mmff!" Mme. Giry spat out the pins. "You know what?" She breathed. "You really ought to show those pectoral muscles more!"

"What?" The realization slowly came over Erik. "You mean... it wasn't my face?" He ventured, his voice trembling.

"What?" Said Mme. Giry vaguely, still absorbed in the objects of her interest. "Ooh my word!" She sucked in her breath sharply. "Tight trousers are _soooo_ you!"

"Enough," Snapped Erik, fed up with Mme. Giry's hungry gaze. "Where is she?"

"Christine? I heard rumors that she has left the city with---"

"I know, I know." He said irritably. "I mean Carlotta. Where is she?"

Mme. Giry ventured a glance at the good side of Erik's face, and shook her head mentally. _Mon Dieu! _She thought. _That was some mental blow he took back then... he must have become some kind of sexual masochist... _

"It's not what you think!" Hissed Erik. "Not even I am _that_ desperate… it's just that she has something that belongs to me..." He noticed an object sticking out of the ballet mistress's pocket. "... And so do you, I reckon." He added.

"Oh, sorry." Said the woman unabashedly, handing the white mask back to its owner. "Meg found this in the cellars--- said something about selling it in an auction or whatnot."

Erik suppressed a shudder. Clearly, that child was wasted in the chorus--- she should have gone to business school. He looked at the mask. He hadn't expected to wear it again--- The Phantom was supposed to be dead... but then again, he didn't like the idea of people auctioning his stuff off, dead or not.

"About Carlotta---" He began.

"La Carlotta? She just stormed out." Mme. Giry said matter-of-factly. "And so did the seamstress, 'cause Carlotta had a fit about the new red dress making her look inflated and threw it into a bathtub full of water. It's one month of work ruined, I tell you, ruined! The seamstress was in hysterics here half an hour ago--- threw all her pins into the air, she did! That's why I'm here picking them up..."

"Well, it'll be hard to imagine anything making our prima donna more inflated than she is already." Muttered the Phantom dryly. _Actually,_ his memory pointed out. _I have seen that dress--- she was wearing it when we... that must have been why she threw it into the bathtub, to make sure no one knows what happened..._

Some part of his mind began to wonder if there was more to Carlotta's fits than what met the eye. The rest of his mind was already pondering on the dreadful things he would do to that insufferable woman should she really have the gall to pawn Christine's ring, the only thing of hers that still belonged to him...

"... anyway, I'm fed up with that horrible bitch... just walked off and left the rest of the cast standing there! Said she's got to have a 'spa' or something, whatever that is." Said Mme. Giry, finishing her rant.

"When will she be back?" Said Erik, with growing annoyance.

"We've no idea." She shrugged. "Is there any chance you can bump her off and do us a good turn?" She turned a beseeching eye towards the Phantom--- who was no longer there, although she could hear indistinct cursing fading into the distance behind the mirror.

She gave a last hopeful yell. "And no chance of terrorizing the managers to raise our wages 100 francs, I suppose?"

* * *

La Carlotta returned to the dressing room late that evening after her shop n' spa excursion. She wasn't surprised to find on the table a white envelop with a skull-shaped sealing wax, addressed to her. It read: 

Madam,

You are not to venture beyond my Opera House again. Should you do, let me remind you that there are many worse ways to die in my cellars, and also that I am far more proficient at prolonging suffering than I am at killing.

I shall also express my intolerance of theft on my premises. Should you not return my ring to me by placing it on the dressing table by tomorrow noon, be prepared for a great misfortune at your performance in tomorrow night's "La Traviata". Do not try my patience.

Lastly, your days at the Opera Populaire are numbered. I wish you luck (which I am sure you will need) in finding a new job. If I do not hear of your resignation by next week, I shall remove you personally--- from life, if necessary.

O.G..

The prima donna snorted as she read thefinal paragraph. The last time she was told "Your days at the Opera Populaire are numbered" was a year ago. That warning's credibility had rubbed off somewhat between then and now. He might as well have said "Your years at the Opera Populaire are numbered". It just wouldn't sound as impressive, she supposed.

La Carlotta did not like to try people's patience. She rather preferred throwing it into a bonfire and blowing it up. "A great misfortune?" She laughed mirthlessly, casting a glance towards a large wooden box she had just picked up from a very special store. "By all means let it happen…"

She picked up the score of "La Traviata". Gods, that's going to be a night to remember... and for someone, posthumously...

To be Continued…


End file.
